Rules Are For Losers

Traveling the village and interrogating its residents, Julian made more than one more married woman fall in love with him. His godly face, status as a mage and how he had handled the children making it almost effortless.

With his Lust aspect, he caught more than one lewd tought while going from person to person. And with his wrath aspect, he sensed more than one husband repressing their anger for him. So they still had a polite and pleasant front on their face when he talked to them.

It wasn't his fault if he was all around league better than them. But their worries were unfounded in the end. Julian wasn't interested in women who would cheat on their husband for no good reason other than ability and a good(godly) face.

Greed and Lust may say otherwise, but he didn't see the value of taking these women as his.

Anyway, in his investigation. Julian found out that no children has been gone missing, which was good. Since his flowers would protect against slow acting curses and signal him if they were broken. He wasn't very well versed in Yang magic yet — the magic that was literally buff magic and the refined version of just flooding his body with mana to make himself stronger — but he still could make the journey to the village in a couple of seconds at full speed. Enough to intervene if something happen.

He also learned that the magic barrier protecting the manor and its surounding from beasts and monsters was weakened. Which was also good, since it meant that canon stayed unchanged.

Unfortunately, his presence as a mage forced him to deflect demands for fixing the barrier in question.

It was strange to say, and even stranger to think. But he needed the puppy to kill Subaru without issues, if only because he would never do it himself. And because it was the less painful way to go by far.

So, satisfied with things. Julian relaxed and idly tested his portable space that he got with Greed. He had been quite surprised when he got it, as he had been working on creating a spell for it back in DxD. But with two closets worth if space, he would change his research focus on increasing the space manually instead.

And needless to say, first thing to try when the opportunity will present itself will be to see if he can bring the space's items to a world to another.

With this in mind, Julian only had to wait a little bit for Subaru and Rem to come seek him, having finished their business and ready to return to the manor.

—————

Now came the unpleasant part, as the next day came to pass. Julian didn't accompany Subaru and Rem to the village. He didn't want to influence the result of what was supposed to happen too much besides what he already did.

Welcoming them back personally, Julian didn't even need to check on Subaru to feel that something felt like death. Call it an instinct, maybe even his relation with Kass. But he just knew.

Forcing himself to grin, Julian wrapped an arm around Subaru's shoulder. "So? Anything special happened today at the village?"

Giving him a weird look, Subaru furrowed his brows in thoughts. "Nothing much, the children are still fooling around with your flowers. The women were disappointed you didn't come with us. And the men were throwing a party because of it. Nothing special, really."

Julian shrugged. "Well, if you want to blame someone. Blame Death for my lucky draws in life."

"Death? Don't you mean God?" Subaru lifted an eyebrow in confusion.

Julian waved him off, his eyed sharpening. "I knew what I meant. Anyway, what's that on your hand?" He casually pointed to the bandage wrapped around his hand.

"Oh that?" Subaru scratched his head in embarrassment.

"Some girl found a lost puppy in the forest and brought it back to the village. And I guess it didn't like me since it bit me. It's no big deal though, just drew a bit of blood." Flexing his hand, Subaru smiled cheerfully.

"I see..." Julian worked his jaw.

Suddenly lowering his voice, he whispered. "Subaru, you know you're not alone in this. Right?"

Startled, Subaru frowned. "What do you mean?"

Gesturing all around him, Julian repeated. "I'm talking about This."

A flash of recognition passing on his face, Subaru still asked, confused. "Of course I know, why are you bringing that up?"

Staying silent for a bit, Julian finally answered while shaking his head. "Just don't forget it if we're ever separated."

"You think it's going to happen?" Subaru fell silent after his question, falling into his own mind at such a possibility.

"I've been thinking for a bit, and the answer to that is yes. Just imagine what would have happened I didn't actually die after you on our first day here." Julian answered simply.

"Crap... I didn't think about that. You're right." Subaru mumbled to himself before grinning and poking Julian in the rib with his elbow.

"Luckily, I have my 'non human' coming from Earth to prevent that right?"

...

"Yeah." Despites himself, Julian's face couldn't help but twist itself into an ugly, crooked smile.

—————

That night, Julian was not able to sleep. So he decided to meditate instead, in the hope of putting his feelings and tumultuous thoughts to rest.

Fortunately, the perfect distraction came around the corner.

Some of his flower had come into contact with something they wanted to destroy. It meant that the beasts were finally acting and targeting the children. So, not knowing another way to calm himself. Julian went to the village.

—————

The village was bright as day with all the torches that lit it up. Villagers cries echoed left and right as they frantically searched for their sons and daughters.

It was the scene Julian was welcomed with arriving at the place.

Upon seeing him, a man wielding a torch ran toward him. "Sir mage! The children! They're missing! Please he-"

Julian held up a hand, cutting him off. "I know. Some of them still have my flowers on them."

The man seemed overjoyed. "Then I'll-"

"No time. Don't follow me." Not in the mood to talk. Julian vanished to search where the monsters had gone.

It didn't take him much time, as the beasts had left obvious trace of their passages in one place on the outskirt of the village. Paw imprints were visisble in the dirt along with broken branches.

After following it, he quickly came to a clearing undulating with hills. The children were there, on one of the farthest mound, unconscious and breathing shallowly due to the curse affecting them.

Crouching to touch the forehead of one little girl, he quickly switched his attention to the fresh bite wound on her arm.

In normal circumstances in this world, a curse couldn't be unmade after the ritual was done. And if the ritual was to be compared to something, it would be like the knot of a spell, slowly tightening around its victim to produce the desired effect.

Only extremelly strong spirits or magician specialized in Yin magic like Beatrice could possible untie the knot, and even then, she had her limit.

But evidently, this world rules could go fuck themselves as far as Julian was concerned. He may be voluntarily letting his friend die for his own good. But he would be damned if he let these little ones die.

Using PoD on his hand, Julian carefully controlled the magic to not affect the girl and destroyed the curse. It was like if instead of bothering to untie the knot with care, he used a chainsaw to rip it in half. With his current control, it was relatively easy to do. As avoiding friendly fire was one the first skill he had learned on his path to master PoD.

With this method, he destroyed the curse on all the children and brought them two by two back to the village in less than a minutes.

After rescuing the last child, he ignored the grateful villagers in favor of going deeper into the forest. Remembering that another child was situated farther in the wood in the canon. Though if he remembered well, she was not a kid from the village.

Walking more carefully into the forest, Julian made sure to not react to all the demon beasts he could sense in his surounding as he arrived to a small break in the trees.

Behind a fallen trunk laid another comatose girl with her blue hair done in a braid.

Advancing toward her, Julian looked her up and down.

Yep, she definitely wasn't one of the children he had given a flower to. He had not even see her around the village the day before. Maybe she had heard that he was a mage and wasn't confident in her cover not being seen through and as such hid from him. No matter the reason, it was a mistake.

After crouching before her, he poked her on the waist. She didn't react, so she was a good actress at least.

He granted her bonus points for actually being affected by the curse.

*GROWL*

Grinning in a feral manner, Julian stood up and turned toward the sound.

The beast before him could only be described as a demonic dog, reaching his chest in height and with a horn on its nose. It would have been a terrifying monster to face for ordinary men for sure.

Unfortunately, him and his kind weren't the predator right now.

The monster jumped high, aiming for his throat. Yet, Julian didn't even boost himself magically and still smashed the dog out of the air with his fist. Directly exploding its head into a gory mess in the process.

"Woah, your dogs sure are squishy. I guess their numbers and the curse is all that's really going for them." Julian said, ignoring the hundreds of red eyes lightning up in the darkness of the forest and turning himself back toward the 'unconscious' girl.

"Really now, nothing?" Seeing her not react at all to his word, Julian sighed.

"Then let's do an harmless test shall we?"

Grabbing the girl by the throat, he heft her up between him and the horde. using her as a shield as he pressed his back against the trunk.

"Go ahead, attack me. Surely, that girl doesn't have any value left after as she lured in..."

At his words, he could see the pack pause for a brief moment. Before they lurched forward slowly, growling menacingly.

They were uncountable at first glance, but Julian wasn't bothered. He simply waited for them to do a move.

And they did, as the first dog lunged at him from his right. He calmly rotated, brought the kid forward and presented it the monster.

Seeing that it didn't deter the dog yet as it jumped for his extended arm with an opened maw. Julian shrugged and put the girl's throat in the trajectory of its bite. Almost shoving her in, really.

The instant one would have thought the beast would clamp down on the child, it diverted its musle and shut close its maw with a click just centimeters besides his hand, averting its attack in the end.

"Right, that's what I thought. What kind of loyal beast would kill its master?" Slapping the dog away into paste, Julian smiled.

"I think it's time to end this farce. Meili Portroute if I'm not wrong? Elsa would be glad to have her little sister back to keep her company, she's rather lonely in the manor you know?"

Not even a second after he had finished his words, the girl's eyes snapped open and with a fluid and lightning fast movement, brought out a camouflaged knife from her clothes and stabbed him in the throat with the help of a twist.

*CLINK*

Throwing a look to the knife who stopped dead at his skin, Julian rolled his eyes. "Why do little girls always try to stab me? Anyway, good shot. But you should have aimed for the eyes."

Saying his piece, he smashed her head into the trunk hard. Knocking her out for real this time.

"Now that that's deal with, where was I again?" Tossing Meili in the dirt, Julian gazed bavk to the demonic beast who became rabid like at his action.

"Oh yeah, I remember. I was going to preach about my pent up frustration."

Receiving howls and charges as an answer, Julian grinned. "Well, I'm not gonna say not to some help."

Needless to say, the forest was painted red immediatly.